LEAN IN, SPD STYLE

Picture my physically adept daughter sitting at the dining room table. She is leaning back in her chair with her feet up on said chair. I remind her that feet are not allowed on chairs at the dinner table. She removes her feet...but somehow manages to retain the exact same lean, with an expression of utter disdain and indifference.

Now picture me sitting at a different table, working in the faculty lounge of the local community college. You will notice – but I will not, at least until my neck pain tells me something is off, several hours in – that I am sitting at an extremely awkward angle.

 

                           Figure I – Awkward and Ultimately Injurious Angle of Seatedness, Not Noticed

Those of us with sensory processing differences may find ourselves in a myriad of awkward and uncomfortable situations/positions because of our divergent vestibular and proprioceptive systems, the systems that tell us where we are in space and how our movement and body location relates to what is around us.

Whereas my daughter Z’s balance, movement, and self-awareness in space are appropriate and allow her to do things in healthy, if sometimes snotty, ways, I fear I’d be barely able to function without my many, many years of ballet and yoga.... G’s study of Tae Kwon Do has done similar remediation for his vestibular, motor, and proprioceptive functioning.

I was uncomfortable sitting there at a random angle from the table, but I am so used to feeling awkward that I didn’t even wonder why, or take steps to address my discomfort, until my neck pain began to eclipse my concentration. When the normal smells and lights and sounds of daily life hurt your brain, what’s a bit more pesky input?

Becoming aware of these goofy and discomforting phenomena is the first step in trying to devise ways in which to avoid actually harming myself. But here’s the thing: mostly, I don’t even know I am doing things “differently” until something lets me know – another person (“Hey, [FSM], why don’t you put on a sweater, since you are shivering?” “OHHHHH! Great idea!”), or actual pain...

What other things do G and I do like sitting at wide angles to tables? I don’t even know. Probably plenty! Do you know a wide-angle sitter? A curb-tripper? A walker-into-walls?

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama


Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop -- a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it's like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo! Want to join in on next month's Sensory Blog Hop? Click here!

An InLinkz Link-up

CAN I SLIDE DOWN THIS?

I’ve often said I’ve never in G’s entire life wanted to hit him. Until yesterday.

Leaving Pardner’s basketball game at the rec center, G – who has the balance of, um, a person without balance - casually threw a leg over a slippery metal pole and was about to slide down the skinny handrail that hung over a three story stairwell.

I was about ten feet away, attending to his little sister, when I heard him ask, “Can I slide down this?” Quicker than one would think possible, I was at his side and pulling him off the railing. I pushed him against the wall where he would be safe. I felt a surge of adrenaline such as I’ve rarely if ever felt before and only at great effort prevented myself from punching him.

My voice, when it came out, didn’t even sound like me. It sounded like a very hoarse man: “DID YOU LOOK??? DID YOU? DID YOU SEE THAT YOU WOULD ALMOST DEFINITELY HAVE SLIPPED OFF THAT RAILING AND DIED???”

Here is a picture of the stairwell I took when we returned to discuss this again: you can see the kids’ heads and shoulders waaaay down there. G asked, from below, “Do you want me to pretend I am dead?” 

NO. NOT. FUNNY.

I've written before about trying to get G to Pay Attention to the World. I can’t say my lectures around his almost sliding into oblivion (or, at least, severe injury) felt groundbreaking. But, since it is clearly so incredibly, desperately beyond important, I tried: “You need to think before you act, [G]. Remember how I have been asking you to pause when you leave school and close your eyes and think if you’ve forgotten anything? Well you need to do that much, much more. Like, whenever you are about to do…anything.

“It’s not that something’s wrong with you that makes it necessary to think before you act.

“Everybody has to think before they act.

“Your sister. in particular, has to think before she speaks. Because she talks a lot and sometimes says sassy stuff. But you need even more to think before you do something, like cross the street. Most people already DO THAT. But you don’t.

“You could have been dead yesterday. Look at my face. Can you imagine how we would all be feeling today if that had happened?”

Unfortunately, I don’t feel like he’s really listening or grasping the impact of my words -- or the possible repercussions of his actions. He’s one of the smartest people I know, yet I still honestly have no idea how to teach him common sense in a way that sticks.

Later in the evening Z was doing her usual acrobatics on the living room rug and G said, “[Z], you’re a calamity waiting to happen,” and I laughed – laughed! – “Look who’s talking!”

“Well, mom, a calamity is also a great disturbance in the atmosphere…”

I think I am still calamitized. To see your child almost off himself in the silliest, most-preventable of ways is pretty devastating. Even more devastating: not knowing how to ensure it doesn’t happen again in a slightly different, potentially highly-avoidable way.

But we will keep trying.

I am so grateful this Thanksgiving that G is still alive, in all his huggable glory.

I am grateful for another chance to try to help him to gain some goldang sense.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

P.S. I am having weird formatting issues. My apologies to those who don't enjoy reading in this format...As you may have noticed there is one portion of this post that is in my old school format. I do not know why...and can't change the rest without making blocks that cover all the words...Le sigh.

Manly Skipping

For some reason - something about bilateral movement? The importance of crossing the midline? A vague association with the importance of crawling before walking??  – I’ve long had the unshared (by him) notion that G needed to learn how to skip. His little sister and I have been trying to teach him for years. The fact that Z always tells him she “looks like a fairy” when she is skipping does not help.*

G recently, finally, learned to skip. But he puts his own spin on it, just to make sure he doesn’t look like his sister. Or a fairy.

He balls up his fists and swings his arms in a mighty way, furrows his brow a bit and keeps shoulders low, knees high.

Watching him, I called out that I liked his “Manly Skipping,” a.k.a. “Macho Skipping.” This being Vermont, the epicenter of all liberalitude and progressiveness, of course I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Then, all of a sudden, in a major collision of past and present, I realized: Manly Skipping looks just like…MOSHING!

Welp, for what it’s worth, that’s what I got this week.

Happy Summer!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* As you might remember from a past post, according to G fairies aren’t real. Except the Tooth Fairy.

Shifting Gears – Part I

Once upon a time there was a little boy who took several years to learn to ride a bicycle. When the young lad finally gained this important skill, he was as proud as can be. A year later, he graduated from the small, low-to-the-ground bike on which he’d learned to ride to a tall bike that had formerly belonged to his mother. As he began to master this grownup bike, he became interested in shifting gears. However, his Mama and her Pardner thought it best that the enthusiastic fellow learn, first, to use the brakes and steer the ve-hicle.

Though the boy dreamed day and night of attaining this prestigious skill, he waited unwearyingly until the sharing of the Secret of the Gears would be allowed.

It came to pass, before the lesson of the shifting of the gears became appropriate, that the young lad went away from home for the first time on a five-day class trip to a wonderful science camp.  Upon the morning of departure to this far away land, his little sister refused to play or speak with him. So deep was her pain at his leaving, that she found herself unable to even bid her brother adieu.

However, shortly after his departure, the girl child was overcome with the knowledge that she had her family all to herself and, forthwith, began a campaign of demanding, and then basking in, undivided attention and adoration. 

Much fun was had, and many “special” outings were undertaken as consolation. Among these, the little girl – who’d learned to ride her bicycle in a trice– was taken on a long bike ride. During this adventure, the family encountered a mighty hill, and the young lady was in need of assistance. At this time, her noble stepfather inadvertently taught the lass to shift gears.

Alas, how could this have come to pass? For the young lad would be most heartbroken should he learn that his little sister, four years younger and light years more physically adept, had been taught the Secret of the Gears before him. The unfairness of this deed would have, as the parents knew full well, filled him with devastation.

And so the parents endeavored to convince the little sister of the importance of not telling her brother that she had the Secret of the Gears without actually asking her to lie to her brother. Many twistings of the tongue and brain, such as the classic “We are not asking you to keep a secret from your brother and yet we feel that it would be best if you did not bring up this matter” were shared with the young Bike Princess by both elders.

Finally, the day of the young lad’s return was upon them. With great joy and anticipation, his Mama and sister awaited him at school pickup. They lovingly loaded his stinking, filthy trunks into the car and sped home for a feast.

Brother and sister alighted from the car and swiftly approached the house empty-handed, apparently anticipating twenty minutes’ “screen time.”

The door, however, was locked, and so they sat upon the deck and conversed, while Mama, having alone shouldered the burdensome baggage and several other items including her capacious mombag, shuffled toward them in an ungainly fashion.

Suddenly, great cries of grief and rage were heard from the land of the deck, for, during the very first moment alone she had with him, the Bike Princess had foisted her knowledge of the Secret of the Gears upon her brother.

Now, some people hear this story and laugh, some shudder or even cry. That is what Part II will be about.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama